I write well to a deadline. If that date is looming, somehow things seem to come together better. Sometimes the results are startling.On Friday, a collogue and I were brainstorming what to do for a story group later this week. She needed a story and an activity by Monday morning. Ah, a great deadline.The audience is made up of 3-5 year olds, the subject is habitat. She brought out a box of hand puppets, and without a thought I began to write a story for them. Habitat seems like a pretty esoteric subject for that age, but it isn't really. Where do you live and why? In about half an hour I had the bones of a 500 word story about habitat. I rewrote it in the afternoon and again on Saturday. Today I will show the finished work to my colleague and see what she has to say, then one final rewrite and off we go. The big problem with it as a product is that I am not an illustrator. Kids' stories need pictures. In this case the hand puppets will illustrate the story. I wrote stories for my daughter when she was little, I wrote a book about the family that lived in the house at the first museum where I worked. It was aimed at fourth graders and I think four or five people actually read it. But haven't done a real kids' story for ages.OK, so it won't win a Newberry Medal, but it is serviceable. And I am proud of having written it.

Some time ago I said that writers need to be readers. When I wrote my first novel, I read only things that my protagonist would have read in the 1890s. I hope that now I am comfortable enough with writing so that I don’t have to immerse myself so completely in the era. A lot of my recent work is set in the colonial period. I am less happy to dive head first into the time. What my characters would read? The Bible and a few sermons. What music? Probably none except what they could produce for themselves. Hymns perhaps. What I have found out about myself is that I can either write or read but seldom can I do both on the same day. Right now I am in a reading phase. In May I was on a panel at a conference and I felt I had to read at least one book by each of the participants. In July I had to do it again. One comes back from these conferences with a pile of new books, some autographed by the authors who attended. Twelve books in two months isn’t all that much reading, but somehow in the middle of it I picked up one of the classics I had not finished when I was in high school. That one was a heavy slog. OK, it is still a heavy slog with about 75 pages to go, a tiny portion of the whole.The members of my critique group seem to be in the opposite mode and are cranking out bits and pieces they expect me to read. Someone from my first critique group sent me to several thousand word on his latest fiction. I have an inch of single spaced, unpublished manuscripts to read.During this flurry of reading I have sat at my computer staring at a blank screen, or the first paragraph or page of some languishing piece of fiction. Nothing. Five or six new words, no new ideas. I know I have to change the beginning of the story that starts with a long interview with a detective before anything interesting happens. I can’t seem to tackle it. I have to come up with the middle section of a short story set on a sheep farm in the early 1800s. I can’t figure out how grandma finds her grandson’s murderer. The more I think about it the fewer ideas I have. I have one completed and rewritten short story that I sent out to be read. Now I need to make the suggested changes, but I can’t seem to pick it up.On the other hand, when I am writing up a storm, I read very little. A page or two before I fall asleep at night.I read in the afternoon but I can write only in the morning. So you would think the two things would fit well together. The reading phase is easier than the writing phase. But there is something at the back of my mind like the thorn that is stuck in my tee shirt. I can’t find it but it keeps bothering me. I suspect that as soon as I finish the last few pages of Moby Dick I will switch back into writer mode. Then every morning back to the computer for a couple of hours. No more blank screens.

My job as museum interpreter sets me up to have my photo take over and over. Who can resist someone dressed like an 18thcentury farmer’s wife holding a chicken or a lamb? Not something you see every day. I have dozens of such pictures, some quite good, and all appropriate for someone who writes historical fiction.

The picture at the beginning of the website is me sitting down for a cup of tea after spending the day teaching kids about sheep. I have one of me trying to catch the sheep and several of me with a borrowed chicken.

These photos may be picturesque but they aren’t great for picking me out of a crowd. I needed something that could go in a conference book, something that showed I have hair, and something that I could put on a story that wasn’t historical.

So after a couple of years of fooling around I finally asked a friend of mine to take one of me, one of me and my daughter together, just in case we ever did anything together, and one of her.

Yes, she is a published writer, too. No, we will never write anything together. (You can find her at elizabethingleerichards.blogspot.com). I spent months looking at professional photos of friends. I ruled out the studio portraits in favor of something more informal. I nailed down the photographer while the trees were still bare and told him we had to wait for a green background.

Thursday was the day. I tried on half my closet. Bright red silk? Boston Red Sox tee shirt? Purple and gold African print? What should I do with my hair? Makeup or none? I never wear makeup and haven’t since graduate school.

In the end I chose a muted rose knit shirt, no makeup and there wasn’t much I could do about my hair.

Did I tell you that the photographer teaches forensic photography? He kept saying things like “nice skin tone.” But hey, how many mystery writers are immortalized by a person whose job is taking photos of dead people?

I had expected, well, I don’t know what I expected. I could list dozens of things I didn’t want but I had no idea what I did want.

Once we got started it became clear he knew exactly what he was doing. I got to pick the background and that was about it. A bunch in the grove with out of focus trees behind me, and some up against the rock wall of the Madison Factory.

Smile or not? “Yes, smile as though you like what you do.”

Head shot, 3/4 shot or whole body? He came in close and got my face. There is one shot where I am sitting at the table looking relaxed and happy that shows I am wearing something below my waist.

My daughter joined us, right from work. She works in a warehouse that doesn’t have climate control. This is August. Her hair was frizzy, and she had a coffee stain on her shirt. She looked fine to me.

Couple of shots of the two of us together, then head shots of her. My very favorite of the whole bunch is the two of us laughing, both with eyes closed and mouths open. We look as thought we like each other and we love what we are doing.

I went home and started a new story to go with my new portraits. I'd love to know from writers what you looked for in your Author Photo, and from readers, what you think of author Photos.

Yesterday was blog day and I missed it. Not for want of trying. Dead computer, weekend at a conference, several false starts. Let’s try again. Almost since I put pen to paper (I wrote my whole first novel on yellow pads) I have sought out people to read and comment on my work. Sometimes it is helpful and sometimes it isn’t. I have been a member of three different critique groups where the member sat around in a room and talked about each others offerings. The first group actually taught me to write. I learned pretty quickly to keep my mouth shut and listen. I would then go home and read over the comments, accept those I felt had merit and ignore the others. Thank you Doug. My second group was extremely helpful but was not genre specific so some of the comments were a tad strange. A short story set in Rhode Island during the Civil War didn’t have enough battles for a war story. A clue artfully hidden in the early part of the story didn’t stand out enough for one reader. Well, that ‘s the point when you are writing a mystery. Thank you Joanne. My current group is made up of experienced mystery writers. All three groups were perfect for the level of writing I was doing when I was in them, each expanded my understanding of writing, each was necessary. Usually I can accept criticism for what it is. The person offering it is usually sincere, and hoping to help me be a better writer, as am I in critiquing their work. But once… I had submitted the first chapters of the novel I was working on to a contest. I would get back two critiques and if the work was good enough I would get a third and be in the running to win. I wasn’t expecting to win, but I was expecting to be moved to the next level. After all I had ten stories in print. I was shocked by the comments “telling not showing,” “beginning writer,” “stick with it, dear, you will get better.” I don’t blame the critiquers for this, I blame the writing but darned if I could figure out what to do about it. So I set the novel aside thinking some day when I had more distance I could look at it with new eyes. I never did. I didn’t stop writing or submitting but that particular work may as well have been sealed in a chest and tossed into the ocean. One of the speakers at the conference may have sent me in the right direction. As the protagonist is looking out the window and sees a friend getting his horse out she never tells the reader what she is feeling. This may be the right or the wrong answer, but at least I can now go back and look.

The real moral of this story is don’t be afraid to seek criticism of your work. It will make you a better writer. Even if it hurts.

Author

The best advice anyone gave me about writing historicals was that you need to experience what you are writing about. The result has been not only more believable settings but a wonderful job teaching history to kids at living history museums.